Faulty teleswitch to E7 circuit for ???? years

oldfrankybaby

I'm a new forum member and I am just about to embark on a journey to recover overpayment to Utility Warehouse, and hopefully previous suppliers. For years I have been trying figure out why my electircity bills were so high; and about 4 weeks ago I discovered that though the meter itself worked fine and switched between Hi tariff and Low at the right times, the teleswitch as not been switching the E7 circuit over. There was a tiny red switch hardly visible from my line of sight on the radio teleswitch that remained ON all the time. The result was that my E7 storage heaters (7 of them!) have been taking up juice at random day and night (compatible with their thermostat settings) - which in practice means for 17/24 hours I'm paying the high tariff.
I always used to pay bills on a budget basis and that has camoflaged the problem and not shown the difference between winter / summer use - I srongly advise anyone to read their meter every month and pay what they use! -
I have been with 4 suppliers - Seeboard for ages (we have lived in this house for 40 years) then Sainsburys, then Scottish Power, finally UW. Been with UW since May 2010. My meter was actually changed to digital in 2001 .
I now believe that my bills have for a long while been inflated by this 'random rate' storge heater consumption. Over the last 10 years they averaged £1800 p.a. (checkng back through bank a/cs) and thats when power was cheaper!.
I have been trying to get them down - hence switching, and I also use solar water heating -ok in summer , wood burning appliances (Rayburn) that also heat my water / cooking mostly in winter etc.
Recently, I've been experimenting by NOT using the storage heaters after this summer and kept I've them off in desperation to identify what was going on. Eurika - my monthly electricity consumption since May 2012 - Dec 2012 has reduced to average £50 per month from over £150 -the crazy thing is that with all my efforts to find a solution, I did not twig about the circuit switch until 4 weeks ago!.
The UW engineer chap called today and fitted an integral meter / switch-over box ( and was very helpfu!l ) he has confirmed that my meter had worked fine but the E7 circuit had been live 24 hours a day. I now will have power to the heaters only at the low tarrif
I'm on to UW about some sort of refund but how can I calculate it? and what about previous suppiers who say they have not got records of my a/c anymore?
Sorry a long post - but its a long story to explain.